Song for Souls (灵魂之歌)

If you have noticed that in more primitive spirit summoning rituals, mediums or shamans will sing some cryptic songs repeatedly until the spirit possesses the medium’s body. This situation remains true although there is more formal soul calling mantras in Taoist, Buddhist or any other forms of magic.

Personally, I think it is cool to have one’s unique personal songs for spirits to listen and react. In this way, the spirits around us would not feel that they are compelled to come because of so-and-so god’s orders; and the ones that come to us would be willing to communicate freely.

Yuki taught me this method and I have composed my personal song for spirits while meditating at seaside:

Like a piece of web, I used to wrap myself with it;

Now I want to set myself free, free from the web of my mind.

Cutting the web of my mind, I am now free; free from all shackles.

Free as a bird, let’s fly into the air; into the realm of spirits.

Now is the time, while the sun is shining on the yellow river;

Come on friends; let’s fly over this great river together joyfully.

Let’s perch on the twigs of the Tree of Life,

Tell me my friend, what is the tree telling you?

Every time when I sit in the wilderness or at an isolated beach and sing this song, I could feel gentle breeze blowing at my face and I can feel there are presences around me.

It is not difficult to compose your own song but you would need to be brave to do it. There is no specific format as the words just flow out from your inner mind. It is also not important if you have any prior knowledge in composing songs or theory of music.

What you need to do is just sit on a bench in a garden and slowly sing in light tune of some words. At first the word compositions may not have any meanings. But after a while you sure to find your own word from your inner self. So, just hymn along slowly and lightly until you feel that you are in sync with the environment: you may feel sad, happy, warm, cold etc. Those are just imprints of the area, so don’t be afraid.

If you don’t like the feeling, just stop singing, stand up and walk away. Of course, you may write down the lyrics and use a musical instrument. I would just keep the song as simple as possible.

Your spirit song is your signature to the spiritual world, whenever you sing your tune; the spirits would know who is addressing to them. I would not recommend the song to share to others but it is not difficult to compose a song; so there is no reason to copy others.